


recarm, revive

by relationshipcrimes



Category: Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth
Genre: Gen, Mild Gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-03-08
Packaged: 2019-11-13 21:36:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18039491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/relationshipcrimes/pseuds/relationshipcrimes
Summary: After a bad encounter with an FOE, Ken is left to carry Kanji out of the labyrinth by himself.





	recarm, revive

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this in 2015 and then never posted it even though it was complete. i found it while doing a deep clean of my files and figured i'm not doing anything else with it, so i might as well put it up.
> 
> it's mostly a response to ken being a little snot over kanji's similarities to shinjiro.

Rise and Fuuka called it “unconscious.” That was politeness, hopefully not for Ken’s sake. When an FOE hit you that hard, you were dead.

Specifically, Kanji was dead.

Minato was petrified, on the other hand; and nobody could muster the mental energy to fix either of these things. “We’ll have to take them to Elizabeth,” said Yu, and wiped blood from his steely hair. “Akihiko, help Ken with Minato.”

“Minato weighs about half a car right now,” said Akihiko. “The only way he’s moving is with two full grown people—no offense intended, Ken-kun.”

Yu looked from Ken to Kanji’s bleached-blond head, face down in the FOE’s spilled paint can. “Kanji’s not light, either.”

“No bigger than Shinjiro,” Akihiko said.

Yu hesitated. He smoothed down Kanji’s hair, tucked his jacket back over his shoulders to hide smudges of white. “No, I’m sorry, Akihiko, but I can’t let Ken carry a c—“

“Please let me carry Kanji,” Ken blurted out.

Yu looked at him. He and Minato, Ken thought, had the same stare—Yu’s keen, a loaded spring, and Minato’s blank, shutters closed—but they both pierced the same. Slide you open, hold, wait. When you bleed, it’ll be on your own volition; the most patient assisted suicide. “It’s going to be a journey,” said Yu.

“I thought we had Goho-Ms,” Akihiko asked.

“Minato has them,” said Yu dryly. They all looked at Minato’s hands stuffed in the petrified folds of his pockets.

“It’s really fine,” said Ken, before Akihiko could protest. “I can do it.”

Yu visibly mulled it over. Looked down at the back of Kanji’s head again, like he could ask for his opinion. Nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Akihiko, you’re with me. I know we’re strong enough to fight the Wonderland FOEs and Shadows now, but it bears repeating that we’re done for today.”

“I wasn’t going to,” Akihiko muttered grumpily.

Akihiko grabbed Minato’s legs; Yu, his torso; and together they hoisted him across their shoulders like lumpy, rocky furniture. “This is a decent workout anyway,” Akihiko puffed. Yu staggered, and had the sense to look embarrassed, but between the two they held Minato just fine.

Gingerly, Ken picked up one large arm. It had the same large muscles from wielding heavy weapons and stains from what looked like cooking oil. Ken felt his own face sour. No, he was strong enough. He could prove it. He could carry this corpse and all its weight. He slung the arm around his neck like he’d seen firemen or policemen—detached officials who knew what they were doing—and fitted himself to the side of the wide torso.

It was more comfortable than he’d expected. Warm. Comforting. He heaved, and heard cracking and felt something like broad, hot fingers trailing down his side. It wasn’t red FOE paint on the floor; Ken caught his own shriek in his mouth, couldn’t believe he’d been so naïve, couldn’t believe Yu had agreed to this. The hollow of Kanji’s concave ribcage folded around Ken, tiny bone-white arms under the cover of Kanji’s jacket.

He took a shaking step forward. Kanji’s long legs trailed out from behind him, dragging on the floor. How silly he must look; like wearing a large corpse.

Together, they stumbled across half a labyrinth floor, pulling their baggage away from the scene of the crime. For a while, Ken could look back and see the red trails from Kanji’s feet; but soon it turned to a smear, then a smudge, then nothing at all. Kanji’s pierced nose hung in the corner of his vision, but no breath tickled Ken’s cheek. His bleached hair hung over his eyes, now, shadowing his dull eyes. And on Ken’s other side hung the hand with weapon calluses and cooking oil stains.

“Just a bit further,” panted Yu. His chest heaved, life pumping in and out. Ken’s eyes narrowed.

“So how does Elizabeth do it?” Ken asked.

“Do what?”

Ken bit his lip. “Bring people back to life.”

“I haven’t a clue. Elizabeth is Minato’s attendant, not mine.”

“You said Margaret did it too, before we showed up.”

“So I did,” said Yu, mildly. He was by far the best adult to have been caught lying to a child—denied nothing, admitted nothing. “Perhaps in the same way Recarm works?”

“Recarm has only ever helped when people were unconscious or _near_ death.”

Akihiko shifted uncomfortably.

“I wouldn’t know if that’s true. I’ve never had to try,” said Yu, at length. He looked at Ken, as if evaluating the site of his next incision, and Ken tucked himself deeper into the cave of Kanji’s crushed torso. Akihiko abruptly switched Minato’s weight to his left shoulder and Yu stumbled again.

“You’d think,” Ken pressed on, “if you have the power to just bring people back to life altogether, you’d have a _responsibility_. You couldn’t possibly let that power go to waste. Think of how many people die every day—accidents, suicides, murders—“

“There’s the entrance,” said Akihiko very loudly.

“Perhaps this place is an exception,” Yu offered. “And Velvet Room attendants aren’t supposed to interfere with the real world, I’ve heard. Thoughts, Akihiko?”

“None,” said Akihiko.

“So Kanji-kun is just lucky,” said Ken dully. “That he got to die here.”

“Lucky he has someone to carry him out,” said Yu.

Ken was covered in blood. There were no wounds anywhere on his body.

Rise and Fuuka were at the doors, fretting; the normality of it slapped Ken harder than the open daylight. “Fuuka’s already called for back-up. Let me help,” said Rise, and slid under Minato right next to Yu, her pink nails chipping against Minato’s stone jacket.

“Ken-kun, did you carry him all by yourself?” Fuuka exclaimed, looking almost outraged. “And Yu let you?”

“I wanted to,” said Ken obstinately.

She frowns. “Then here, let me—“

“No, it’s okay, you’ll only get dirty.”

“I can wash my clothes la—“

“No!” said Ken. She snatched her hand away. “Please… don’t. The health center is just down the hall.”

She stared at him with fear. She looks at everything with fear, Ken reassured himself. “S-Sorry,” he couldn’t help but add, anyway.

“Ken-kun,” she began, just as the rest of S.E.E.S. and the Yasogami students rounded the corner.

Yu breathed out heavily, almost with relief, that Ken couldn’t bring himself to feel. It was like a tidal wave of people, all with sympathy and caring on their faces, and Ken burrowed ever deeper into Kanji’s side. He was losing warmth, but Ken could provide enough for the both of them. A small team quickly formed under Minato, collectively bearing his weight, a caterpillar’s worth of legs to support and endless fingers to carry.

And then faces started turning towards Ken.

Ken pulled Kanji’s arm tighter around his own neck. “No,” he replied. “No, I’m fine.”

“We can just—“

“No, it’s okay,” said Ken, irritably, and started walking.

“Ken-kun, let us—“

“No, I can do it,” said Ken, hunching his back. Kanji’s legs followed him, and Ken pushed away with everything his small thighs had.

“Is Kanji—“

“No, he’s unconscious,” said Ken, shutting his eyes.

“Is that bl—“

“No, FOE paint,” said Ken desperately, feeling like who he is—a tiny boy wearing the dead.

“Is Kanji breathi—“

“No, don’t be silly. Nobody is lucky enough to come back from the dead,” said Ken.

“Who can lift something heavy?” somebody called. “Yosuke and Teddie? Can somebody find Shinj—“

“ _NO_ ,” yelled Ken, and slammed Elizabeth’s door in their faces.

It didn’t do much, because Minato’s human caterpillar had dispersed and reassembled all around his bed, and Ken didn’t even feel any better. But at least nobody watched as Ken strained, shoving Kanji up on the Western bed one massive, dead limb at a time, and all but collapsed at his feet. How embarrassing. Then he pushed Kanji’s hair back from his face, to make the shadows around his eyes disappear.

“How much is it?” Yu sighed, pulling out his wallet. Elizabeth smiled.

Ken looked down at lucky, lucky Kanji. Lucky that Yu isn’t paying for his funeral, his coffin, his tombstone. Lucky that he’s not growing cold on the dungeon floor. I could have left him, Ken thought as forcefully as he could, like he could make Kanji hear. Kanji didn’t move. I could have left you there where Elizabeth can’t play God, Ken thought, and Kanji would deserve it. Nobody deserved to come back to life. How could anyone deserve _life_ , when they all stood on the corpses of the past? Nobody deserved to live at all, not Kanji, or Minato, or a—a murderer. And then, maybe, Kanji wouldn’t bother Ken with his hulking slouch, his street thug slang, his cooking oil hands and sympathetic questions. The only reason he’s not, Ken thought, even more forcefully, was so _he, Ken_ , could prove to himself that he was strong enough. Because he could do this. He could. He could. He—

Elizabeth clapped her hands, and Kanji opened his eyes.

“Look at your face!” she exclaimed lightly. Ken blinked. Kanji groaned and swore. “Oh, have a lollipop. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to give kids…?” she wondered aloud, dropping a red candy in Ken’s lap, and wandered towards the ruckus around Minato’s bed.

“Ughh,” moaned Kanji, and rubbed at his eyes. “Is this the… health room? Damn, did I get hit that hard? Shit, I really dropped the ball—I mean shoot, I said shoot,” he corrected quickly.

The candy sat, heavy, in Ken’s lap.

“Did you get me back here?” Kanji’s voice sounded—Ken didn’t know what it sounded like. “Man, you didn’t have to do that. Hey, thanks. I really owe you one, you know?”

Ken sniffled.

“Ken-kun?” said Kanji. “Are you—whoa, shit—I mean shoot! Shoot!” A noise bubbled out of Ken’s throat, and he slapped his hands over his mouth. “Ken-kun, please, I’m no good with kids, I’m especially no good with crying kids—c’mon, look, I’m okay! I’m fine! See?”

“I know,” Ken manage to say, just as the first tremor hit, and then another, until Ken was shaking apart and pressing his hands to his eyes, trying to put the liquid back. He was bleeding from the eyes and he didn’t want this at all; damn Yu for letting Ken carry him. “I know,” he said, sobbing into his palms. Kanji made a panicked noise and reached out, but Ken seized his shirt. Kanji’s arms closed around him anyway.

“I’m okay,” repeated Kanji, helplessly.

“I’m glad you’re alive,” Ken apologized, over and over and over. “I’m so glad you’re alive.”


End file.
